In the prior art, there has been proposed an ultrasonic probe including: an oscillator for treatment that has a plurality of arrayed first oscillation elements and applies ultrasonic waves for treatment to a subject; and an oscillator for diagnosis that has a plurality of arrayed second oscillation elements and applies ultrasonic waves for diagnosis to the subject and receives the ultrasonic waves for diagnosis reflected by the subject, in which the oscillator for treatment and the oscillator for diagnosis are stacked on top of one another (see WO 2004/066856).
In addition, there has been proposed an ultrasonic treatment device including: an ultrasonic generation source that generates ultrasonic waves for treatment; and drive means that drives the ultrasonic generation source such that the frequencies of the ultrasonic waves for treatment generated from the ultrasonic generation source change with time (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H8-131454).
In the prior art, there have been proposed devices that oscillate ultrasonic waves to heat targets. For the conventional devices, however, users are required to mechanically control the positions of ultrasonic oscillation elements with high accuracy so as to adjust correctly the positions that are heated using ultrasonic waves, and thus the burden that falls on the users operating such devices is heavy. Further, when such heating is used for treatment, persons to be treated are also forced to bear heavy burdens due to the considerable time required for preparations before the heating, severe limitations on the persons' body movement during the treatment, and so on.
In view of the above problems, the present invention has an object of correctly heating a target with simpler device configuration and user operations than in the prior art.